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fembuckSorry for the delay in updates, I got seriously blocked on ending of this one and have only been able to kick it back into gear recently. The good news is that the rest of it is plotted out and the rest of the story will be coming in a very timely manner.
Now back to our scheduled story ...
Title: Welcome to the Fold
Author: Janine
Fandom: Blade the Series
Pairing: Krista/Chase
Rating: R
Warning: bloodplay, language, rough sex
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: Krista and Chase settle into the unexpected relationship they have begun.
========================================
Part 9
A Month Later
Krista closed the door to her room leaning back against it, breathing deeply for a few seconds before walking away and collapsing onto her bed.
She had gotten so comfortable at the coven, so comfortable that she had almost forgotten.
She sighed and flung her arm over her face.
Her team had wanted to go drinking and had informed her that she was the leader and they wouldn’t go without her so she should come of her own will or they’d have to annoy her. Laughing Krista raised her arms in defeat and let them drag her out of the building and in search of cheap wings and beer.
It was good. It was fun. She hadn’t been out like that since returning from Iraq. It was nice talking about how they had taken care of the Armayans who had tried to raid one of their warehouses, she had laughed watching Marco’s impressions of an Armayan who had gotten his leg chopped off by one of his own men and had taken off hopping towards the door. It had been fun rounding up the humans that surrounded them and hustling them at darts, their superior sight and heightened reflexes making them preternaturally good at games that required hand eye coordination. Krista had had a drunken, boisterous good time and grinned happily as they staggered their way back home looking forward to finding her woman and having another drunken, boisterous good time, naked with Chase.
Her good mood faded when they ran into another group staggering home from a bar on a deserted street corner around 4 a.m., however. Her group was drunk and tired and not really looking for a fight, but when someone from her group bumped into someone from the other and words were exchanged a tussle ensued and one of the humans ended up bleeding on the ground.
Krista felt herself growl as the smell of flesh blood entered the air, her fangs distending automatically as she turned in the direction of the bleeding man on the ground and began to advance towards him. She got herself under control before more than that happened, however, but the rest of her team had no such inclination to stop and didn’t. Swiftly before she could utter a sound they dove on the man on the ground, the ones that couldn’t reach the body reaching for the others in the fallen man’s group mouths open, their fangs glittering in the moonlight.
Krista yelled at them to stop, she ordered them, and when that didn’t work she physically began to yank them off of the humans, standing in front them and striking any member of her team that tried to get past her until they finally calmed down and stopped trying to attack.
Once her team was under control Krista turned to see what the damage was, her eyes closing in despair at what she saw the scene in front of her. They had been bitten; all of the humans had been bitten. Two were bleeding rather profusely from the neck and were barely conscious while the other three were dazed and bruised and still lying on the ground, but they had all been bitten. They were all infected.
Marco had spoken then, they all knew her policy on not killing humans but these ones were infected now. He placed his hand on her shoulder and said that they needed to be drained. Krista shrugged his hand off. It was true and it pissed it off. She told him to take care of the bodies and walked away.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut underneath her arm. She thought of Chase and she wondered how the blonde would have handled the situation and knew immediately. Chase would have started the frenzy, she would have bitten first and released last. She remembered hunting with Chase almost two years before, the screams of her victim, her face covered with blood as she offered his neck up to Krista smiling.
Krista’s stomach rolled.
She hadn’t thought about Chase like that for a long time. She had forgotten, or maybe she had forced herself to forget what Chase was. She hadn’t seen Chase hunt since she had come to the coven, Chase hadn’t spoken of it to her, but they went for long stretches of time during the night without seeing each other and Chase could have been up to anything during those times. Chase knew how she felt, knew they would fight if she brought it up, and so Krista knew that she wouldn’t have mentioned it, especially since they became lovers. And she had never asked. She had seen Chase drinking from a glass those nights when she came to her room to feed her, and she had seen her doing it since then as well and she chose to believe that was the truth and didn’t think about it anymore.
But Chase was a killer. So was Sabine. So were all of the people that surrounded her. The people she played poker with, the people that she had gone drinking with, all of them killers. She lived in a house of death, and for months she had stuck her fingers in her ear and gone ‘la la la la la’ because she didn’t want to know, she didn’t want to face it. She had a home again and a unit and a lover. They were her friends, she could think of them that way now, they were her team … and Chase was, Chase was so much more. And she wanted to believe it; she wanted it to be real and sterile. She wanted to believe that they all drank from blood bags in the fridge downstairs and that when they went on missions to kill vampires that they did it to save humans and the day instead of to further Chase’s political agenda.
But they weren’t. They weren’t heroes. They weren’t serving the public good to serve the public good, they were doing it to serve themselves. And her team didn’t refrain from killing because they were morally against it, they refrained because she ordered them to. They were just humoring her, she was just humoring herself.
The door to her room burst open.
Krista looked over to see Chase standing in front of her.
“They had to finish them. You know that,” Chase said immediately upon entering as she looked down at Krista, an inscrutable look on her face before she moved to sit beside Krista on the bed. She hadn’t sat on this bed in a while. Her room was bigger than Krista’s and they had begun to spend their days there after the first couple of times in Krista’s room.
“Not the point,” Krista whispered her voice pained as she leaned away from Chase when the blonde tried to touch her.
“Krista,” Chase said her voice dropping with displeasure as Krista moved away from her. It had been a very long time since Krista had shied away from her touch. It hurt her to have the brunette pull away from her after all of this time.
“Do you still hunt?” Krista asked shifting further away from Chase on the bed to make sure the blonde wouldn’t touch her. It distracted her when Chase was too close to her and she needed to hear Chase’s answer. She needed to have this conversation.
“You’re upset about what happened,” Chase began knowing that she was in very dangerous territory with the younger vampire. She had known that this would come up eventually, she had hoped it wouldn’t until Krista’s tastes had changed, but she had known that she likely didn’t have that long. “Let me help you,” Chase continued shifting closer to Krista on the bed, her movement insistent, not letting Krista move away from her until the brunette finally relented. Chase relaxed slightly when the brunette let her draw her into a hug.
Krista buried her face in Chase’s hair breathing in deeply before pulling back.
“Do you still hunt?” she asked again, the blonde’s diversion tactic making her more anxious since it seemed to confirmed what she feared to be Chase’s response.
“Of course,” Chase replied sighing slightly before meeting Krista’s eyes. “I’m a vampire, Krista. It’s what we do.”
Krista closed her eyes and leaned her back against the wall, taking a deep breath.
“You already knew I did,” Chase said softly, moving to sit beside Krista, her hand moving to rest on the brunette’s waist. “It’s why you never asked,” Chase continued bending forward to place a soft kiss on Krista’s throat. “Don’t be like this,” she went on quietly shifting onto Krista so that she was straddling her waist. “We’ll go take a nice warm shower,” Chase said rubbing Krista’s arms gently. “We’ll go to bed, and it will be alright when the sun goes down,” she continued bending down to kiss Krista’s cheek before placing a soft kiss on her lips.
Krista was still under Chase allowing the blonde to kiss and caress her gently before she suddenly reached out grasped Chase firmly by the shoulders.
It was a mistake for her to have left her hotel room all those months ago with Chase. She never should have come to the coven. She never should have thought that she could live with these people. It was foolish, so very, very foolish. She could see that now. She never should have come. But she did.
And now …
Krista looked up into Chase’s face. The blonde wasn’t scared of her but she did look apprehensive, her fine, beautiful features revealing a tension that usually wasn’t present, her eyes dark and thoughtful as if her brain were running through a thousand different calculations.
She wanted to kiss Chase as she looked at her. She wanted to take that beautiful face into her hands and bring her lips against Chase’s. She wanted to lay her down on the bed and kiss a trail down her throat and stomach. She wanted to burry her face in Chase’s neck and breathe in her scent and lose herself in the magic of Chase’s touch. She wanted to lie naked and shivering with Chase in her arms and feel the blonde whisper into her ear and pet her hair softly as she smiled against her skin.
But how could she? How could she want these things with Chase when Chase killed? When Chase felt absolutely no remorse for it? Chase was the anti-thesis of everything she used to believe in yet had somehow become the definition of everything she now needed.
The thought came to Krista that she should leave. She should leave the coven and Chase and the death behind her. She should move into the mountains somewhere alone, separate from humanity, starving on animal blood, miserable, alone, pathetic and of absolutely no threat to anyone. The idea didn’t even horrify her. There was an attraction in the idea of suffering for her sins. But then she thought of Chase, and not being able to see her, not being able to touch her or talk to her and suddenly the idea of the mountains became unbearable.
She needed Chase. She …
“Don’t hunt anymore,” Krista said finally, her voice desperate and panicked. “Just don’t, just use the fridge,” Krista continued looking up into Chase’s face. “Please. For me. Please, Chase.”
Chase blinked, lifting her hand up to Krista’s face, cupping it tenderly.
“Krista,” she breathed out softly shaking her head. Didn’t she see that it didn’t make a difference whether she stopped hunting or not. Even if she did the others would continue to. Krista would still be living with, friends with and working with predators. She could try to stop hunting, she could drink from the fridge, but it wouldn’t solve the problem. In another month, or two months, or three months when Krista witnessed the others being what they were she would descend into despair again, and then it would be ‘tell everyone to drink from the fridge, ban hunting’ and it would never work. She would try to quit hunting; she could do that for Krista, but the others never would, she would lose the coven if she tried to make them. “It won’t make a difference,” Chase continued softly. “Even if I try to stop, it’s not going to change what we are. Besides,” Chase went on sighing softly, reaching down to take Krista’s hand, “I’m not sure that I could.”
“You could,” Krista said taking Chase’s hand. “You can control it.”
“Maybe for a while,” Chase conceded, “but it’s in me now. It’s easier for you since you’ve never hunted for food. But Krista, if I said to you now ‘never drink from my neck again’, could you do it?” Chase asked softly. “Maybe you could for a few weeks, or a few months, but one day, I’d be in your arms and you’d bite Krista, not because you wanted to but because it’s your instinct to, and you can only fight instinct for so long.”
Krista was quiet for a long time, simply leaning into Chase’s touch. Drinking from Chase was one of the most exquisite things she had experienced in life. The thought of not being able to sink her fangs into Chase and feel her blood trickling down into her mouth as Chase moaned and stroked her hair was almost enough to bring tears to Krista’s eyes. She could try not to drink from Chase, but it was so tempting. Sometimes when they were together, she would tell herself that she wouldn’t, but then there would be a smooth patch of skin presented to her and she just couldn’t help herself.
“You make it sound like an addiction,” Krista breathed out as Chase stroked some hair off of her face.
“Not an addiction. A biological imperative,” Chase replied gently stroking Krista.
“Leichen,” Krista began. She had stayed away from Leichen after leaving Blade because she had been blacklisted by the other Houses, but with Chthon gaining some sway again, and her being back with the House she was sure that the ban on her could be lifted.
“Have you tasted that stuff?” Chase asked wrinkling her nose. “It’s absolutely horrendous and you need to drink three times as much of it as the original recipe,” Chase continued. “It’s entirely too disgusting Krista, it’s just simply to revolting to work for long.”
“The Leichen’s manage to do it,” Krista brought up reasonably. The Leichen’s described blood with as much distaste as Chase described what they drank. Maybe it was just an acquired taste.
“The House of Leichen is made up of strays,” Chase began. “It’s the last hope for some of the most perverted, degenerate, sadistic, sociopathic vampires in creation. When a vampire makes so many transgressions that their own people decide that they need to be ashed for public safety they run to the House of Leichen. They do it because they must. They do it because they know that death awaits them if they fall back into their old patterns,” Chase continued. “They do it because they’re scared of themselves. I’m not. And most of us aren’t,” Chase finished not voicing the thought in her head that Krista might just be able to tolerate Leichen and its swill. The brunette had already shown great resolve in not hunting even though she had been feeding regularly and she might just be able to last with Leichen. However Chase knew that she never could. She wouldn’t be able to deal with their sterility, and their horrible cloned blood and their sanctimonious attitudes, and she certainly couldn’t handle being around Frederick all the time. If Krista left for Leichen she couldn’t go with her, and the thought of that was just too horrible for her to contemplate. She had gotten quite attached to Krista during the past few months and she preferred to keep her.
Krista shuddered at the thought of vampires so exponentially evil that Chase could refer to them with disdain.
“Is that why Frederick joined them?” Krista asked not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer. It had become clear to her from her time at Marcus’ coven that Frederick had not been a good husband, and from comments Chase had made back then and since they were reunited she was certain that a fair amount of abuse had taken place during their marriage. She had wondered, after meeting Frederick, how he had changed from the man Chase had been married to into the seemingly decent man she had met. The idea that it was because he was so out of control that he had been put on a death list made her feel ill, because if he was that cruel in general she couldn’t imagine what hell Chase had gone through with him.
“He wasn’t quite as bad as some there,” Chase responded her eyes drifting away from Krista’s, her voice barely a whisper. “But he was bad enough that it was his last hope.”
“When you were married,” Krista began, her voice cracking a little as she spoke. “When you were married, what did … what did he …” Krista continued until Chase placed a finger over her lips. Krista met Chase’s eyes then, and what she saw there tore her heart in two. Chase’s eyes were closed, her lips pressed together in a tight line as she shook her head from side to side as if it was inconceivable for her to respond to Krista’s attempted question.
“I’ll kill him,” Krista growled, her voice soft but menacing as her fangs showed. “I’ll kill him,” she repeated harshly.
Chase closed her eyes blinking back the wetness forming there before leaning forward and bringing their lips together in a tender kiss that tasted of tears.
“You’re sweet,” Chase whispered softly as she pulled away from Krista’s lips before leaning back in to kiss her one more time. She doubted that Krista would ever actually kill Frederick the way he was now, but the fact that she was moved enough to say so at the thought of what had been done to her in the past touched her more deeply had she knew how to express.
“Sweet on you,” Krista mumbled against Chase’s lips, recalling a previous conversation they had had before she pulled back to rub the blonde’s nose with her own, resting her head on Chase’s shoulder a moment later.
“So,” Chase said softly, a touch of apprehension in her voice. “Does that mean that you don’t think I’m a monster?” Chase asked, her nose buried in Krista’s hair as she spoke, her eyes closing as she felt the brunette tense against her before pulling her head away from her shoulder.
Krista gazed at Chase for a long moment before she responded. There was a time only months ago when she would have snorted at the blonde’s statement and told Chase that she was the thing nightmares were made of. Things were different now though, she knew things; she felt things that wouldn’t let her see Chase in black and white terms like that anymore. She didn’t believe that Chase was a monster, but the blonde wasn’t an angel either. The problem was that she didn’t know what Chase was, and she was scared of what her feelings for the blonde made her.
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” Krista breathed out softly her eyes drifting away from Chase’s. “I just … I’ve dedicated my life to protecting people and, and I can’t let go of that, I can’t think of them as cattle, Chase. I mean, we were them,” Krista went on her eyes drifting up to look at Chase for a moment before skittering away again. “I’m sitting here with you in my lap, and I know your scent, and your taste. I’ve kissed every part of your body down to the tips of your toes, and when I think about losing you, about not seeing you, not being able to touch you, I … ache inside,” Krista revealed somewhat uncomfortably, her voice tight as she blinked trying to hold back tears. “But two years ago, if you had passed me on the street you would’ve killed me without a second thought, you tried to. And I can’t, I can’t reconcile the idea that someone who could potentially be my lover could also be lunch just because they aren’t infected with some fucking virus,” she finished a chocked laugh coming from her before she shook her head, and then stared down at her comforter.
Chase was silent as Krista stopped speaking, staring down at the brunette for a moment before swinging her legs over the younger vampire and moving to take a seat next to her on the bed. She had thoughts like the ones Krista was voicing a long, long time ago during the day as she slept. Awake, and conscious they hadn’t plagued her as they plagued Krista, but when asleep, when her unconscious and still largely human mind was given a chance to roam she had been tortured with horrible nightmares of what she had done and what she was capable of doing.
“He has no idea how much damage he’s done,” Chase breathed out softly turning her head to look at Krista. “Blade and his bloody poison, trying to keep you something you no longer were. When the change comes over someone, it should sweep over them, consuming them entirely. Not just changing their body, but their mind as well, both coming together in a perfect harmony changing you into something different, something more … the perfect predator,” Chase went on sighing deeply. “You started that change, I remember seeing it that first night we spent out on the town,” she continued smiling softly at the memory. “And then Blade came,” Chase voiced her tone hardening as she spoke. “He fractured you, stopped your mind and body from coming together. A vampire who still thinks and feels like a human. He made you a female version of himself with an allergy to the sun.” Chase turned to look at Krista again, her hand reaching out, resting on the brunette’s thigh. “The serum’s gone now, but you’re still holding on. You’re still fractured. You need to allow yourself to … merge. You’ve already started Krista,” Chase said running her hand up Krista’s thigh until she could grasp the brunette’s hand. “You have friends, Sabine, Macro, people you care about, people who care about you. You have me, someone who loves you.”
Krista looked over at Chase sharply as the blonde spoke, but Chase continued before she could speak.
“It’s not such a terrible life, is it?” Chase asked shifting closer to Krista, placing a delicate kiss on her neck. “Stop fighting, Krista. You’re not one of them anymore, you need to let go of the idea that you are. Just, relax,” she went on before pressing her lips against Krista’s, feeling the brunette sigh against her lips before she opened her mouth and allowed Chase’s tongue to enter her, the younger vampire’s hand coming up to stroke Chase’s face as they kissed.
“I don’t know, Chase,” Krista whispered softly when the blonde pulled away from her mouth. “I don’t know how. I don’t know if I should. I just don’t know if I can. I just don’t know.”
Chase pulled Krista into her arms and carefully maneuvered them up the bed before throwing the comforter over their limbs and settling down with the brunette, her hand gently stroking Krista’s back as they lay together in the silence.
She didn’t know either.
TBC...
Previous chapters:
Prequel - A Brave New World
Welcome to the Fold - Parts 1-3
Welcome to the Fold - Part 4
Welcome to the Fold - Part 5
Welcome to the Fold - Parts 6-7
Welcome to the Fold - Part 8
Now back to our scheduled story ...
Title: Welcome to the Fold
Author: Janine
Fandom: Blade the Series
Pairing: Krista/Chase
Rating: R
Warning: bloodplay, language, rough sex
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: Krista and Chase settle into the unexpected relationship they have begun.
Part 9
A Month Later
Krista closed the door to her room leaning back against it, breathing deeply for a few seconds before walking away and collapsing onto her bed.
She had gotten so comfortable at the coven, so comfortable that she had almost forgotten.
She sighed and flung her arm over her face.
Her team had wanted to go drinking and had informed her that she was the leader and they wouldn’t go without her so she should come of her own will or they’d have to annoy her. Laughing Krista raised her arms in defeat and let them drag her out of the building and in search of cheap wings and beer.
It was good. It was fun. She hadn’t been out like that since returning from Iraq. It was nice talking about how they had taken care of the Armayans who had tried to raid one of their warehouses, she had laughed watching Marco’s impressions of an Armayan who had gotten his leg chopped off by one of his own men and had taken off hopping towards the door. It had been fun rounding up the humans that surrounded them and hustling them at darts, their superior sight and heightened reflexes making them preternaturally good at games that required hand eye coordination. Krista had had a drunken, boisterous good time and grinned happily as they staggered their way back home looking forward to finding her woman and having another drunken, boisterous good time, naked with Chase.
Her good mood faded when they ran into another group staggering home from a bar on a deserted street corner around 4 a.m., however. Her group was drunk and tired and not really looking for a fight, but when someone from her group bumped into someone from the other and words were exchanged a tussle ensued and one of the humans ended up bleeding on the ground.
Krista felt herself growl as the smell of flesh blood entered the air, her fangs distending automatically as she turned in the direction of the bleeding man on the ground and began to advance towards him. She got herself under control before more than that happened, however, but the rest of her team had no such inclination to stop and didn’t. Swiftly before she could utter a sound they dove on the man on the ground, the ones that couldn’t reach the body reaching for the others in the fallen man’s group mouths open, their fangs glittering in the moonlight.
Krista yelled at them to stop, she ordered them, and when that didn’t work she physically began to yank them off of the humans, standing in front them and striking any member of her team that tried to get past her until they finally calmed down and stopped trying to attack.
Once her team was under control Krista turned to see what the damage was, her eyes closing in despair at what she saw the scene in front of her. They had been bitten; all of the humans had been bitten. Two were bleeding rather profusely from the neck and were barely conscious while the other three were dazed and bruised and still lying on the ground, but they had all been bitten. They were all infected.
Marco had spoken then, they all knew her policy on not killing humans but these ones were infected now. He placed his hand on her shoulder and said that they needed to be drained. Krista shrugged his hand off. It was true and it pissed it off. She told him to take care of the bodies and walked away.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut underneath her arm. She thought of Chase and she wondered how the blonde would have handled the situation and knew immediately. Chase would have started the frenzy, she would have bitten first and released last. She remembered hunting with Chase almost two years before, the screams of her victim, her face covered with blood as she offered his neck up to Krista smiling.
Krista’s stomach rolled.
She hadn’t thought about Chase like that for a long time. She had forgotten, or maybe she had forced herself to forget what Chase was. She hadn’t seen Chase hunt since she had come to the coven, Chase hadn’t spoken of it to her, but they went for long stretches of time during the night without seeing each other and Chase could have been up to anything during those times. Chase knew how she felt, knew they would fight if she brought it up, and so Krista knew that she wouldn’t have mentioned it, especially since they became lovers. And she had never asked. She had seen Chase drinking from a glass those nights when she came to her room to feed her, and she had seen her doing it since then as well and she chose to believe that was the truth and didn’t think about it anymore.
But Chase was a killer. So was Sabine. So were all of the people that surrounded her. The people she played poker with, the people that she had gone drinking with, all of them killers. She lived in a house of death, and for months she had stuck her fingers in her ear and gone ‘la la la la la’ because she didn’t want to know, she didn’t want to face it. She had a home again and a unit and a lover. They were her friends, she could think of them that way now, they were her team … and Chase was, Chase was so much more. And she wanted to believe it; she wanted it to be real and sterile. She wanted to believe that they all drank from blood bags in the fridge downstairs and that when they went on missions to kill vampires that they did it to save humans and the day instead of to further Chase’s political agenda.
But they weren’t. They weren’t heroes. They weren’t serving the public good to serve the public good, they were doing it to serve themselves. And her team didn’t refrain from killing because they were morally against it, they refrained because she ordered them to. They were just humoring her, she was just humoring herself.
The door to her room burst open.
Krista looked over to see Chase standing in front of her.
“They had to finish them. You know that,” Chase said immediately upon entering as she looked down at Krista, an inscrutable look on her face before she moved to sit beside Krista on the bed. She hadn’t sat on this bed in a while. Her room was bigger than Krista’s and they had begun to spend their days there after the first couple of times in Krista’s room.
“Not the point,” Krista whispered her voice pained as she leaned away from Chase when the blonde tried to touch her.
“Krista,” Chase said her voice dropping with displeasure as Krista moved away from her. It had been a very long time since Krista had shied away from her touch. It hurt her to have the brunette pull away from her after all of this time.
“Do you still hunt?” Krista asked shifting further away from Chase on the bed to make sure the blonde wouldn’t touch her. It distracted her when Chase was too close to her and she needed to hear Chase’s answer. She needed to have this conversation.
“You’re upset about what happened,” Chase began knowing that she was in very dangerous territory with the younger vampire. She had known that this would come up eventually, she had hoped it wouldn’t until Krista’s tastes had changed, but she had known that she likely didn’t have that long. “Let me help you,” Chase continued shifting closer to Krista on the bed, her movement insistent, not letting Krista move away from her until the brunette finally relented. Chase relaxed slightly when the brunette let her draw her into a hug.
Krista buried her face in Chase’s hair breathing in deeply before pulling back.
“Do you still hunt?” she asked again, the blonde’s diversion tactic making her more anxious since it seemed to confirmed what she feared to be Chase’s response.
“Of course,” Chase replied sighing slightly before meeting Krista’s eyes. “I’m a vampire, Krista. It’s what we do.”
Krista closed her eyes and leaned her back against the wall, taking a deep breath.
“You already knew I did,” Chase said softly, moving to sit beside Krista, her hand moving to rest on the brunette’s waist. “It’s why you never asked,” Chase continued bending forward to place a soft kiss on Krista’s throat. “Don’t be like this,” she went on quietly shifting onto Krista so that she was straddling her waist. “We’ll go take a nice warm shower,” Chase said rubbing Krista’s arms gently. “We’ll go to bed, and it will be alright when the sun goes down,” she continued bending down to kiss Krista’s cheek before placing a soft kiss on her lips.
Krista was still under Chase allowing the blonde to kiss and caress her gently before she suddenly reached out grasped Chase firmly by the shoulders.
It was a mistake for her to have left her hotel room all those months ago with Chase. She never should have come to the coven. She never should have thought that she could live with these people. It was foolish, so very, very foolish. She could see that now. She never should have come. But she did.
And now …
Krista looked up into Chase’s face. The blonde wasn’t scared of her but she did look apprehensive, her fine, beautiful features revealing a tension that usually wasn’t present, her eyes dark and thoughtful as if her brain were running through a thousand different calculations.
She wanted to kiss Chase as she looked at her. She wanted to take that beautiful face into her hands and bring her lips against Chase’s. She wanted to lay her down on the bed and kiss a trail down her throat and stomach. She wanted to burry her face in Chase’s neck and breathe in her scent and lose herself in the magic of Chase’s touch. She wanted to lie naked and shivering with Chase in her arms and feel the blonde whisper into her ear and pet her hair softly as she smiled against her skin.
But how could she? How could she want these things with Chase when Chase killed? When Chase felt absolutely no remorse for it? Chase was the anti-thesis of everything she used to believe in yet had somehow become the definition of everything she now needed.
The thought came to Krista that she should leave. She should leave the coven and Chase and the death behind her. She should move into the mountains somewhere alone, separate from humanity, starving on animal blood, miserable, alone, pathetic and of absolutely no threat to anyone. The idea didn’t even horrify her. There was an attraction in the idea of suffering for her sins. But then she thought of Chase, and not being able to see her, not being able to touch her or talk to her and suddenly the idea of the mountains became unbearable.
She needed Chase. She …
“Don’t hunt anymore,” Krista said finally, her voice desperate and panicked. “Just don’t, just use the fridge,” Krista continued looking up into Chase’s face. “Please. For me. Please, Chase.”
Chase blinked, lifting her hand up to Krista’s face, cupping it tenderly.
“Krista,” she breathed out softly shaking her head. Didn’t she see that it didn’t make a difference whether she stopped hunting or not. Even if she did the others would continue to. Krista would still be living with, friends with and working with predators. She could try to stop hunting, she could drink from the fridge, but it wouldn’t solve the problem. In another month, or two months, or three months when Krista witnessed the others being what they were she would descend into despair again, and then it would be ‘tell everyone to drink from the fridge, ban hunting’ and it would never work. She would try to quit hunting; she could do that for Krista, but the others never would, she would lose the coven if she tried to make them. “It won’t make a difference,” Chase continued softly. “Even if I try to stop, it’s not going to change what we are. Besides,” Chase went on sighing softly, reaching down to take Krista’s hand, “I’m not sure that I could.”
“You could,” Krista said taking Chase’s hand. “You can control it.”
“Maybe for a while,” Chase conceded, “but it’s in me now. It’s easier for you since you’ve never hunted for food. But Krista, if I said to you now ‘never drink from my neck again’, could you do it?” Chase asked softly. “Maybe you could for a few weeks, or a few months, but one day, I’d be in your arms and you’d bite Krista, not because you wanted to but because it’s your instinct to, and you can only fight instinct for so long.”
Krista was quiet for a long time, simply leaning into Chase’s touch. Drinking from Chase was one of the most exquisite things she had experienced in life. The thought of not being able to sink her fangs into Chase and feel her blood trickling down into her mouth as Chase moaned and stroked her hair was almost enough to bring tears to Krista’s eyes. She could try not to drink from Chase, but it was so tempting. Sometimes when they were together, she would tell herself that she wouldn’t, but then there would be a smooth patch of skin presented to her and she just couldn’t help herself.
“You make it sound like an addiction,” Krista breathed out as Chase stroked some hair off of her face.
“Not an addiction. A biological imperative,” Chase replied gently stroking Krista.
“Leichen,” Krista began. She had stayed away from Leichen after leaving Blade because she had been blacklisted by the other Houses, but with Chthon gaining some sway again, and her being back with the House she was sure that the ban on her could be lifted.
“Have you tasted that stuff?” Chase asked wrinkling her nose. “It’s absolutely horrendous and you need to drink three times as much of it as the original recipe,” Chase continued. “It’s entirely too disgusting Krista, it’s just simply to revolting to work for long.”
“The Leichen’s manage to do it,” Krista brought up reasonably. The Leichen’s described blood with as much distaste as Chase described what they drank. Maybe it was just an acquired taste.
“The House of Leichen is made up of strays,” Chase began. “It’s the last hope for some of the most perverted, degenerate, sadistic, sociopathic vampires in creation. When a vampire makes so many transgressions that their own people decide that they need to be ashed for public safety they run to the House of Leichen. They do it because they must. They do it because they know that death awaits them if they fall back into their old patterns,” Chase continued. “They do it because they’re scared of themselves. I’m not. And most of us aren’t,” Chase finished not voicing the thought in her head that Krista might just be able to tolerate Leichen and its swill. The brunette had already shown great resolve in not hunting even though she had been feeding regularly and she might just be able to last with Leichen. However Chase knew that she never could. She wouldn’t be able to deal with their sterility, and their horrible cloned blood and their sanctimonious attitudes, and she certainly couldn’t handle being around Frederick all the time. If Krista left for Leichen she couldn’t go with her, and the thought of that was just too horrible for her to contemplate. She had gotten quite attached to Krista during the past few months and she preferred to keep her.
Krista shuddered at the thought of vampires so exponentially evil that Chase could refer to them with disdain.
“Is that why Frederick joined them?” Krista asked not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer. It had become clear to her from her time at Marcus’ coven that Frederick had not been a good husband, and from comments Chase had made back then and since they were reunited she was certain that a fair amount of abuse had taken place during their marriage. She had wondered, after meeting Frederick, how he had changed from the man Chase had been married to into the seemingly decent man she had met. The idea that it was because he was so out of control that he had been put on a death list made her feel ill, because if he was that cruel in general she couldn’t imagine what hell Chase had gone through with him.
“He wasn’t quite as bad as some there,” Chase responded her eyes drifting away from Krista’s, her voice barely a whisper. “But he was bad enough that it was his last hope.”
“When you were married,” Krista began, her voice cracking a little as she spoke. “When you were married, what did … what did he …” Krista continued until Chase placed a finger over her lips. Krista met Chase’s eyes then, and what she saw there tore her heart in two. Chase’s eyes were closed, her lips pressed together in a tight line as she shook her head from side to side as if it was inconceivable for her to respond to Krista’s attempted question.
“I’ll kill him,” Krista growled, her voice soft but menacing as her fangs showed. “I’ll kill him,” she repeated harshly.
Chase closed her eyes blinking back the wetness forming there before leaning forward and bringing their lips together in a tender kiss that tasted of tears.
“You’re sweet,” Chase whispered softly as she pulled away from Krista’s lips before leaning back in to kiss her one more time. She doubted that Krista would ever actually kill Frederick the way he was now, but the fact that she was moved enough to say so at the thought of what had been done to her in the past touched her more deeply had she knew how to express.
“Sweet on you,” Krista mumbled against Chase’s lips, recalling a previous conversation they had had before she pulled back to rub the blonde’s nose with her own, resting her head on Chase’s shoulder a moment later.
“So,” Chase said softly, a touch of apprehension in her voice. “Does that mean that you don’t think I’m a monster?” Chase asked, her nose buried in Krista’s hair as she spoke, her eyes closing as she felt the brunette tense against her before pulling her head away from her shoulder.
Krista gazed at Chase for a long moment before she responded. There was a time only months ago when she would have snorted at the blonde’s statement and told Chase that she was the thing nightmares were made of. Things were different now though, she knew things; she felt things that wouldn’t let her see Chase in black and white terms like that anymore. She didn’t believe that Chase was a monster, but the blonde wasn’t an angel either. The problem was that she didn’t know what Chase was, and she was scared of what her feelings for the blonde made her.
“I don’t think you’re a monster,” Krista breathed out softly her eyes drifting away from Chase’s. “I just … I’ve dedicated my life to protecting people and, and I can’t let go of that, I can’t think of them as cattle, Chase. I mean, we were them,” Krista went on her eyes drifting up to look at Chase for a moment before skittering away again. “I’m sitting here with you in my lap, and I know your scent, and your taste. I’ve kissed every part of your body down to the tips of your toes, and when I think about losing you, about not seeing you, not being able to touch you, I … ache inside,” Krista revealed somewhat uncomfortably, her voice tight as she blinked trying to hold back tears. “But two years ago, if you had passed me on the street you would’ve killed me without a second thought, you tried to. And I can’t, I can’t reconcile the idea that someone who could potentially be my lover could also be lunch just because they aren’t infected with some fucking virus,” she finished a chocked laugh coming from her before she shook her head, and then stared down at her comforter.
Chase was silent as Krista stopped speaking, staring down at the brunette for a moment before swinging her legs over the younger vampire and moving to take a seat next to her on the bed. She had thoughts like the ones Krista was voicing a long, long time ago during the day as she slept. Awake, and conscious they hadn’t plagued her as they plagued Krista, but when asleep, when her unconscious and still largely human mind was given a chance to roam she had been tortured with horrible nightmares of what she had done and what she was capable of doing.
“He has no idea how much damage he’s done,” Chase breathed out softly turning her head to look at Krista. “Blade and his bloody poison, trying to keep you something you no longer were. When the change comes over someone, it should sweep over them, consuming them entirely. Not just changing their body, but their mind as well, both coming together in a perfect harmony changing you into something different, something more … the perfect predator,” Chase went on sighing deeply. “You started that change, I remember seeing it that first night we spent out on the town,” she continued smiling softly at the memory. “And then Blade came,” Chase voiced her tone hardening as she spoke. “He fractured you, stopped your mind and body from coming together. A vampire who still thinks and feels like a human. He made you a female version of himself with an allergy to the sun.” Chase turned to look at Krista again, her hand reaching out, resting on the brunette’s thigh. “The serum’s gone now, but you’re still holding on. You’re still fractured. You need to allow yourself to … merge. You’ve already started Krista,” Chase said running her hand up Krista’s thigh until she could grasp the brunette’s hand. “You have friends, Sabine, Macro, people you care about, people who care about you. You have me, someone who loves you.”
Krista looked over at Chase sharply as the blonde spoke, but Chase continued before she could speak.
“It’s not such a terrible life, is it?” Chase asked shifting closer to Krista, placing a delicate kiss on her neck. “Stop fighting, Krista. You’re not one of them anymore, you need to let go of the idea that you are. Just, relax,” she went on before pressing her lips against Krista’s, feeling the brunette sigh against her lips before she opened her mouth and allowed Chase’s tongue to enter her, the younger vampire’s hand coming up to stroke Chase’s face as they kissed.
“I don’t know, Chase,” Krista whispered softly when the blonde pulled away from her mouth. “I don’t know how. I don’t know if I should. I just don’t know if I can. I just don’t know.”
Chase pulled Krista into her arms and carefully maneuvered them up the bed before throwing the comforter over their limbs and settling down with the brunette, her hand gently stroking Krista’s back as they lay together in the silence.
She didn’t know either.
TBC...
Previous chapters:
Prequel - A Brave New World
Welcome to the Fold - Parts 1-3
Welcome to the Fold - Part 4
Welcome to the Fold - Part 5
Welcome to the Fold - Parts 6-7
Welcome to the Fold - Part 8
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Date: 2007-06-28 06:04 pm (UTC)